


my heart is an echo chamber

by darthrevaan (Burning_Nightingale)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Astral Projection, Enemies to Lovers, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Choking (Star Wars), Force Ghost(s), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-11 05:19:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18423666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burning_Nightingale/pseuds/darthrevaan
Summary: and there is empty space where my soul used to be.Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader don't meet again until their final confrontation on the Death Star.Not in person, at least.





	my heart is an echo chamber

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aurae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aurae/gifts).



> I've been wanting to write this idea for _ages_ ; hopefully I've done it justice!

Obi-Wan closes his eyes, breathes; and the desert breathes with him.

He can feel them, out there in the night; a thousand lives spread across the dark sands. Creatures large and small, human and alien and animal. He touches their minds, feels them, one by one, sees them behind his eyelids as procession of tiny lights, flickering flames in the Force. Distantly he can hear them, too. In this state, this deep meditation, it feels as if the waking world hangs suspended somewhere above his head, while he watches, removed. Calm. At peace. Animal calls, shrieks, screams, the whistle of the wind over sand; all come to him from far away, echoing from the material world from which he has temporarily removed himself.

A disturbance, on the edge of his mind. Obi-Wan pushes at it, attempting to deny it entry; but it comes anyway.

That is both the power and the curse of their bond.

The presence hangs behind his shoulder, dark and malevolent.

 _Obi-Wan_ , he says, and a wave of bitterness washes over him, emanating out of the figure behind him.

Obi-Wan doesn’t answer. He rarely does. Sometimes Vader rants and raves, screaming at him across the link that binds them; and sometimes he says nothing, but simply hangs there, a menacing presence at Obi-Wan’s back. Obi-Wan doesn’t know what he’s thinking, when he says nothing. Sometimes the need to ask burns in him; sometimes he’s convinced he never, ever wants to know.

This time Vader stays silent. Obi-Wan can feel his eyes on the back of his neck – whatever that means, here in this place – and his skin crawls, but he doesn’t react. He stays, fighting to keep the cool, expansive calm, stays until the time he allotted for meditation is over. Vader doesn’t try to hold him back as he floats his way back up, back into his body; but Obi-Wan hears his name, just once, in the barest whisper.

When he opens his eyes, he’s alone in the desert.

/

When he first came to this place, Obi-Wan tried to pretend he couldn’t still feel the flickering, beaten bond in the depths of his mind. It was psychosomatic, the way he could still feel the old bond, like amputees still felt their severed limbs even years after they had been cut away. Anakin wasn’t alive; Obi-Wan just wished he was.

For a year, he didn’t meditate. Not fully. He would sit and clear his mind, perform breathing exercises, but he never let it go further, never let himself slip into the state of deep meditation that separated him from his physical body. Never let himself slip into a state where he might discover something best left alone.

Not meditating let him ignore whatever lingering remains of a bond still hung on inside his head; but it came at a price. The price, for Obi-Wan, were the nightmares; nightly visitations that left him weak and shaking in his bed, his mind ringing with screams and images of the Temple, flashes of Anakin’s gold eyes, the heat of magma on his bare face. It also meant that Yoda’s lessons could only ever be half-complete. He would never be able to contact Qui-Gon if he couldn’t push his mind beyond himself, if he was tethered entirely to his physical form.

Still, it was more than a year before he could bring himself to sit down out on the dune above his hut, before he could force the nerves in his stomach down enough to start the old breathing exercises, before he could bring himself to calm and push himself beyond.

He made no contact with anyone that first session. Not Qui-Gon, not Yoda; not Anakin, in whatever form he might be now.

He could no longer deny the bond, though. Could no longer deny that it was more than a broken, lingering shell; it was a full bond, and undeniably connected to another living being. It was battered and suppressed, ignored and beaten and weak; but it was there.

Obi-Wan’s first instinct was to break free of it, to purge and excise it like a cancerous tumour. But it was too late for that now. The bond had been established too long, had gone too deep and been nurtured, allowed to grow strong, strong enough that it was now so deeply rooted in Obi-Wan’s mind that to remove it would risk inflicting major psychological damage. It would be there for as long as they both lived; a constant tie, a reminder of what had once been.

It didn’t so much as flicker for months, even as Obi-Wan began to meditate more, reach out further, trying to make some kind of contact with Qui-Gon. It didn’t stir, even as Obi-Wan found himself spending hours in deep meditation, making ever more desperate attempts to establish a connection with his old master. There was nothing at all; nothing, until the nightmare.

Obi-Wan’s nightmares had never been exact on the details. He would wake, shaking, knowing he had been terrified in his dreams, but unable to remember what exactly he had seen. Sometimes it seemed a blessing that the images from his nightmares never followed him into the waking world – but they still left him sweating and shuddering, gasping for breath, terror clutching at his chest.

This nightmare was different. It began with a scene that should have filled him with warmth; the halls of the Coruscant Temple, quiet and calm, with other Jedi wandering past, alone and in pairs, both silent and engaged in quiet discussion. It felt warm, happy, like home – but Obi-Wan could feel apprehension churning in his gut. Something was coming.

It started, like it always did, with a dark presence coalescing behind him.

Obi-Wan could feel him there, like dark eyes pressing on the back of his neck, like a cold breath running down his spine. For a long moment he didn’t turn, too afraid to look and see what waited behind him.

Instead, a voice like the chill dark between stars whispered into his ear, _Obi-Wan._

In front of his eyes the Temple flickered, and for just a few seconds it looked as he had last seen it; a burned out shell, the floor scattered with bodies.

He had woken then, shaking and sweating even in the hot desert night. For weeks he’d been too afraid to meditate again; but he’d forced himself. He was a Jedi, and a Jedi would not back down from a Sith.

This time, when Vader had appeared in his dreams, he’d turned to face him.

The monster in black bore no resemblance to the man he'd once known. Obi-Wan wasn’t sure if that was a blessing or a curse.

 _Obi-Wan_ , the monster had said, _I knew you lived._

 _Despite your best efforts_ , Obi-Wan said, _Yes._

 _It will not be so for long,_ Vader growled, _I will kill you. I will wipe you from the face of this galaxy._

 _Maybe._ Despite himself, Obi-Wan had felt a smirk come to his lips. _But first you’ll have to find me._

_/_

He is no untrained, untested Jedi. At times he can feel Vader pulling on their bond, attempting to break into his thoughts while he's awake, to see his location in the real world. But Obi-Wan denies him easily. When he meditates, he does it only in places he knows Vader will glean nothing from; out in the midst of the desert, or behind the dunes that will hide his little hut from view. Vader will see nothing but red rock and shifting sand and blue sky; Obi-Wan could be on a thousand different worlds, and he knows that Vader’s detested homeworld is the last place he’ll be willing to look.

In contrast, what he sees of Vader’s surroundings is often informative. In the same way Vader finds it easy to break into Obi-Wan’s dreams while he sleeps, so Obi-Wan finds it easy to slip into Vader’s mind while he's awake - and Vader goes to many places, and sees many things.

 _Does it not sicken you_ , Obi-Wan asks, as Vader stands over the body of the Jedi he’s just killed, _to murder those who once called you family?_

 _Get_ out _of my head!_ Vader snarls, turning to slash his lightsaber through the space where Obi-Wan appears to be standing. But it hits nothing, meets no resistance, and the force of Vader’s swing sends it sizzling into the ground for half a second before Vader corrects himself and pulls his arm back.

Obi-Wan knows the Force projection looks incredibly convincing. If Obi-Wan had seen it in the waking world himself, he could have been fooled into thinking Vader had come for him at last; luckily for his sanity, that hasn’t happened. Not yet.

Vader learns, over the years, that Obi-Wan is never really there. They cannot touch; they can only talk, exchange words and barbs, often from opposite ends of the galaxy.

He should not pursue this. He should not slip into Vader’s thoughts, into his space, even to learn what his enemy is doing, where he is. If the bond becomes strong enough that Vader is able to look the other way, it could be their undoing.

But there is a temptation here that goes beyond simple information gathering. He dares not admit the cause to himself, but Obi-Wan can't deny the pull, like a rope that tethers him to the Emperor’s monstrous enforcer, something stronger even than their Force bond. That he might have been able to suppress, to ignore; but this is something else. Something he doesn't want to examine too deeply.

 _She was my friend_ , he says, as they stand in the wreckage of the shuttle crash that killed Jedi Master Jocasta Nu. _She was a brilliant woman; perhaps the best scholar of our age. Why did she deserve death?_

 _The Emperor willed it_ , is Vader’s only answer.

 _He was once_ your _friend_ , Obi-Wan says angrily, as they watch King Lee Char wail his grief for the devastated Mon Calamari homeworld. _Does destroying the planet you once help saved not seem wrong, to you?_

 _All who stand in the Empire’s way shall be destroyed,_ Vader growls. Obi-Wan senses contempt as he stares down at the sobbing Mon Cala King. _And he is weak._

 _She was your apprentice,_ Obi-Wan says urgently, as red and white lightsabers clash, _She was your friend. Your_ sister.

 _She is nothing,_ Vader says, pressing his attack.

Still, Ahsoka lives – and that is what matters.

On and on, he follows Vader through his days, and Vader in turn follows him through his dreams. At first they fight like cat and dog, snapping at each other and seeing which words will cut deepest, which shots will hit hardest. As time goes on, though, Obi-Wan notices that Vader lapses more often into empty, hollow silence; and after a while, he begins to do the same.

 _Do you ever think_ , he asks, several years after the start of his and Vader’s dance together, _about that night on Palamin IV?_

It is night on the world where Vader stands, looking out at the sea under the moon. It is beautiful, and peaceful; the silver light on the water, the soft shushing sigh of the waves against the cliff below, the murmurs of conversation and strains of music coming to them from behind, within the elegant sandstone palace that hugs the shore. Obi-Wan doesn’t know why Vader is here; he dreads the idea that Vader will disturb this soft, fragile peace, but he won’t be surprised when it inevitably happens. ‘Peace’ and ‘Vader’ are not two words that go together.

 _I do not think about The Jedi_ , Vader says, stared fixedly out to sea.

_I knew how you felt. I tried to deny it to myself, but I knew. And I think, that night on Palamin, you were going to tell me. You came so close to it._

Vader says nothing, but Obi-Wan can feel the dark swirl of his emotions in the Force. _Why didn’t you tell me?_ he presses.

 _Because he did not want you to know._ Physically, Vader is as unmoved as always, but Obi-Wan thinks he detects just the hint of a waver in his voice. _And you would not have heard._

For a moment, the only sound is the sigh of the sea.

_You’re right; I wouldn’t._

If Vader is surprised by the admission, he doesn’t show it. _How The Jedi felt then is irrelevant_ , he growls. _I have no such weakness._

Always there is the separation. Always ‘he’, never ‘I’; always ‘The Jedi’, and never ‘Anakin. A conscious distancing from a past that hurts too much.

 _There is no such refuge for me_ , Obi-Wan whispers, _I have the same weaknesses I always had._

At that, Vader finally turns to look at him; but Obi-Wan is gone before he can speak.

/

Vader has never let himself be seen here, in the heart of his deepest refuge; or perhaps Obi-Wan has never allowed himself to look.

But now here he is, in the cramped little white sphere that is the only place Vader can unmask without pain. Squashed into the space with him, perched on the white computer console at the side of the dome.

Obi-Wan is incorporeal, not really here, so whatever chemicals circulate inside the dome’s air don’t affect him. He’s free to look, for the first time in years, on the true face of the man who once meant everything to him.

It is not a pretty sight. Vader’s burns have healed up to a point, but they are still deep, twisted gouges in his flesh, evidence of the horror and agony he once suffered. That Obi-Wan made him suffer.

This time, it is Vader who speaks first. _You did this to me._ He sounds accusing, but also…flat. Resigned.

 _I did._ There are so many feelings wrapped up in those two words - guilt, anger, hatred, resignation - but they feel muted to Obi-Wan now. Despite his face, nothing about Vader’s eyes has changed; they are still intense, burning with inner fire, the same colour as the Tatooine sky at high noon.

_Anakin._

He doesn’t know who moves first; the end result is the same. They meet in the centre of the small space, and Vader’s lips close over his, at once the strangest and most natural thing in the universe.

They never kissed when he was Anakin Skywalker; not even so much as a quick brush of the lips on forehead or cheek. Obi-Wan knew his own weaknesses, and thought he knew how to keep them in check. Anakin, he thinks, was always too frightened of destroying what they already had.

Here and now, Obi-Wan doesn’t think about how it feels. Just for once, he wants something, and he has it. No higher thoughts; no moral quandaries.

He’s not quite sure how long it lasts; only that it ends with the feeling of a hand tightening around his throat.

Technically Obi-Wan is incorporeal; but the bond they have is through the Force, and Vader can reach back along it to a limited extent. Enough to make it hurt, to make the constricting grip on Obi-Wan’s throat felt in his real body back on Tatooine.

 _I,_ Vader grits out, _am not The Jedi._

Abruptly the grip on his neck goes slack, and the Force projection of Obi-Wan slumps back down into his previous position on the console. Vader is towering over him, a huge black figure, much larger than Anakin Skywalker ever was.

 _What did the Sith Lord do to you, once he had you in his grasp?_ Obi-Wan asks, almost to himself.

Vader says nothing. After a moment, hesitant, wavering, Obi-Wan reaches up a hand to touch his face.

Flashes of pain course through his limbs. Remembered pain, channelled to him across their bond; the things Sidious has done while he has had Vader in his clutches, the tampering, the changes, the sick experiments.

_You are more a slave now than you ever were before._

Vader’s voice seems to hold all the exhaustion in the universe as he says, _Get out of my head, Obi-Wan._

/

Vader comes to him in a dream, the night they spend in hyperspace on the _Millenium Falcon_ , on their way to Alderaan.

 _For the first time, I feel you are moving. You are closer than I have ever felt you,_ he says. _I sense that our final meeting is not far away._

The same knowledge has been growing in Obi-Wan’s heart, though he won’t admit to it. The spectre of Vader looms in his future, a menacing, inescapable black cloud that shrouds the rest of his path from view. Obi-Wan knows why he cannot see his own future; he knows now what the ancient masters meant, when they described how it felt to watch your own death come closer.

_It may not go as you expect, Vader._

_Doubtful,_ Vader sneers. _You are an old man now, Kenobi. You cannot hope to defeat me._

_Not in combat, perhaps. But maybe in another battlefield - one for which you are woefully unprepared._

_I am afraid of_ nothing, Vader scoffs.

 _That_ , Obi-Wan smiles, _is not quite the same thing_.

/

Visiting Vader as a Force Ghost is both harder and easier than before. It is easier to slip through his defences, to appear at whatever time and place Obi-Wan desires; harder to actually retain his sense of self, to hold himself away from the flow of the Living Force, from the constant temptation to surrender, to rejoin its ever-flowing stream.

That was what Qui-Gon trained him to do; to maintain his consciousness after death, to keep himself separate. It is hard - but it works.

Vader is staring out of the observation deck windows on his flagship when Obi-Wan appears by his side. _Am I never to be rid of you_ , he says, not moving his gaze from the starfield outside.

_There was once a time when you never would have had us part._

_That time is long past. I had thought killing you would be the end of it._

_I did warn you that it would not go as you expected._

Vader says nothing for a long moment. Obi-Wan is beginning to think he’s being ignored - which is fine with him - but then Vader says, _Did you know, Obi-Wan? About my son?_

There is no point in lying. _Yes,_ Obi-Wan says, _Yoda entrusted him to me, so I_ _hid him where you’d never think to look. Where you’d never want to look._

 _Tatooine,_ Vader says, finally understanding. _That is where you’ve been hiding all these years._

_Yes._

_And you think he will rise up against me; destroy the Sith and re-create the Jedi Order._

_That is what I hope._

Vader finally turns to face him. _I will frustrate that hope,_ he says, his voice cold as Obi-Wan has ever heard it. _I will sway him to my side, and then no force in the galaxy will oppose us. We will rule, side by side._

Obi-Wan can’t help the smile that quirks his lips. _You can try_ , he says, _but you obviously don’t know Luke very well._

/

It is a balm to his soul, to see the celebrations and joy on Endor; but it hurts as well. To know that it has cost so much, and that so many could not be here to see it.

Obi-Wan doesn’t know why he comes back to Tatooine. In all his years here he never grew fond of the place, despite the stark beauty he can recognise, and to some extent appreciate. There is something wild, harsh, and unfriendly in this planet, something that dislikes him as much as he dislikes it.

A hesitant stirring of the sand behind him. _Do you come here to avoid me?_ Anakin’s voice asks.

 _No,_ Obi-Wan says, but he doesn’t explain. Can’t explain.

Anakin cautiously steps up to his side. _We could go somewhere nicer,_ he offers.

Obi-Wan nods slowly. _I would like to go somewhere_ , he says, his voice soft, _but I cannot guarantee it will be nicer._

Anakin tilts his head questioningly. _Where?_

_I have spent too long here, Anakin. I am tired of holding myself apart - resisting the will of the Force._

_You wish to move on._

_I do._

Anakin chews his lip, a habit he picked up as a young padawan and was never able to shake. It’s such a familiar, unthinking gesture, that for a moment Obi-Wan can almost believe they are alive again, living and breathing.

_Do you know what happens? When you go beyond?_

_No._ Obi-Wan smiles, and stretches out a hand. _I thought we might find out together._

That old, well-loved smile spreads across Anakin’s face. _That sounds like fun_ , he says, reaching out to link their fingers. _Now?_

_Better than never._

Obi-Wan closes his eyes, feels something _release_ inside him; and they dive out into an infinity of stars.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
